With the May 21 runoff between Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel just one day away, this election has already been one to remember. Los Angeles mayoral election this year has broken the record for the most amount of money spent on campaigns.
Spending eclipsed the $33 million dollar mark over the weekend, with a whopping $25.6 million coming in to support the two current candidates for mayor, Garcetti and Greuel. The other $7.4 million went to candidates who did not make it to the runoff.
Super PACs (political action committees) constituted a large portion of the donors, contributing over $10 million to the two mayoral hopefuls. The super PAC "Working Californians alone contributed over $4 million to Greuel's campaign.
To become mayor "you have to have some groups out there, independent committees, supplementing what you're able to raise - unless you're independently wealthy," said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.
Most people think that the money just goes to things like T.V. ads and billboards, but there is another source financed by the campaigns that takes on a large role in any election. Voter outreach programs (door-to-door representatives of candidates) are crucial to any election.
"Before getting a job like this I always thought about the money in politics, it's a lot of money, my big question always being, who's putting in the money and what are they getting in return?" canvasser Miguel Morales said.
Morales, a canvasser, decided he would find out first hand and became part of Eric Garcetti's voter outreach program. He goes door-to-door reminding people to vote and helping them out with anything they can.
Canvassers also make calls to local people in an attempt to get their candidate's name out there and in the heads of voters before the election. They stand by and answer any questions they can. keeping tallies of people's responses in order to get a better idea of how the voting is going.
In the end, as Morales notes, most of these people working for the mayoral hopefuls have little in the way of ties to the candidates. He observes that many are in just for a paycheck, which is usually above minimum wage, but the work is not easy, as they are tasked with the job of getting a city to vote wherein it's expected only one in four will reach the polls on Tuesday.